Batgirl Will Begin Shooting in 2018

DC's Geoff Johns has revealed that Joss Whedon will start work on the Batgirl movie next year. The next DC movies to be released after Justice League will be James Wan's Aquaman and David F. Sandberg's Shazam! with Batgirl possibly following, as it appears that the Batman spin-off has been placed on the fast track. It is unclear when the movie will be released or officially start production, but it could come a lot sooner than expected.

Geoff Johns sat down with IGN to discuss the Batman universe and the inclusion of Batgirl. He explains.

"We haven't gone out there and said what our slate is, because we'll do it when we're ready and have the films we're excited for, but for Batman, what I will say is that Batman is more than just Batman and it's been way too long since we've seen, you know, an expansion of that universe, and Batgirl, we are doing Batgirl with Joss Whedon, and it's going to be super exciting. He's going to start that next year."

Now this is definitely exciting news about Batgirl, but what does it say about some of the movies that aren't spin-offs? Batman hasn't even started production yet, so it sounds kind of weird to start a spin-off of a movie that hasn't been released or even cast yet. Johns goes further into talking about exploring the Batman universe in a way that has never been done before. Johns had this to say.

"And that's just the start, we want to explore the Batman universe in a very big new way; Matt Reeves is coming on to do The Batman now and we don't want to do the same thing that has been done before, we want to build it out just like we built it out in the comics."

It's interesting and commendable that DC is not interested in retreading what has been done before within the Batman universe, but it might be wise to have a solid standalone Batman movie before the expansion of the universe takes place. There's reports of a Harley Quinn and the Joker spin-off as well as David Ayers' Gotham City Sirens movie that is set to begin production soon as well. But what's going on with The Batman? Will Ben Affleck continue with the role after stepping down from the director's chair and then having his script thrown out?

Regardless, Warner Bros. and Geoff Johns are sure to know better than anyone what's going on behind the scenes, so there is more than likely a method to their madness. But at the same time, the DCEU does have a pretty rich history of announcing projects that have gone years and years with being little more than just talk. The Flash appears to be at a standstill after not being able to lock down a director. But again, maybe we're all wrong and the panel later today will reveal all of the answers to our burning questions.

Batgirl appears to be coming up quicker than expected and the same can be said about Gotham City Sirens. Could we see some kind of crossover between Batgirl and Gotham City Sirens? Only time will tell, so until then we'll have wait for the official announcements to trickle in.